Senator John Kennedy slams the trillion-dollar bipartisan infrastructure bill, calling it an inflationary bomb. Matt Doyle has more.
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LSU’s live mascot Mike the Tiger has received his second dose of the COVID-19 vaccination. Jeff Palermo on how this came to be…
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Senator John Kennedy opposes the trillion-dollar bipartisan infrastructure bill, citing the legislation’s cost, lack of infrastructure focus, and limited offerings for Louisiana.
The trillion-dollar package will increase deficits by 256 billion dollars over ten years per the Congressional Budget Office. Kennedy says that’s more than the GPD of Louisiana.
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Half of the funds utilized are repurposed COVID relief dollars that were allocated but never spent. About another 250 billion comes from a range of new taxes on businesses and the wealthy.
Kennedy says only about a quarter of the bill funds traditional hard infrastructure, and he bemoaned the disproportionate amount bigger cities will receive, like 40 billion for “big city mass transit systems”.
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Kennedy argues Louisiana is only set to receive 1.2 billion dollars in new funding over ten years as a result of the bill, but Senator Bill Cassidy, who helped craft the legislation, says the number is actually six billion.
Kennedy says the increase in business taxes specifically target industries that are prominent in the state.
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Kennedy says another reason he did not support the bill was the despite the cost the Senate refused to include Hurricane Laura relief funds for Southwest Louisiana.
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As the state’s tourism industry is still recovering from the 2020 pandemic fallout a 4th surge is already prompting the cancellation of major events, like the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. New Orleans and Company Spokesperson, Kelly Schulz, encourages those in the industry to remain optimistic.
Cut 6 (08) “…we can.”
So far Schulz says they have a number of conventions still on the books for the fall and they are hopeful because the majority are privately controlled events. But Schulz says the cancellation of Jazz Fest this year is a blow the state shouldn’t have to take.
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Schulz says Jazz Fest’s cancellation is not only financially devastating for the state it’s a tradition that means so much emotionally for residents also.
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Jazz Fest plans to return to its Spring timeframe next year right now it’s scheduled for April 29 through May 8, 2022.
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The LSU Vet School announces the school’s live mascot Mike The Tiger has received two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. The second dose was administered on Friday. Spokesperson Ginger Guttner says an animal health company called Zoetis donated the vaccine
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Guttner says it was important for Mike to get vaccinated because it has been determined that Tigers can, in fact, contract the virus.
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Barricades have circled LSU’s beloved mascot habitat and Guttner says that was to keep Mike a safe distance away from people to avoid getting sick.
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The barricades are scheduled to be removed before the start of football season.
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The Delta COVID surge does not appear to be slowing down as the Louisiana Department of Health reports 16,500 new cases and 50 new deaths since Friday.
Senator Bill Cassidy says this surge is all the more tragic because it could have been prevented if more people had gotten vaccinated.
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Roughly 90 percent of new cases and 84 percent of COVID-related deaths were unvaccinated individuals according to data captured at the end of July.
The percentage of fully vaccinated Louisianans is 38 percent. Cassidy says there’s a lot of misinformation about the vaccine’s development.
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The surge of new cases has resulted in a big increase in new vaccinations administered. In early July the state averaged under 5,000 new vaccines given a day. That number is now around 15,000. 53 percent of Louisianans 12 and up have now received at least one shot.
Over 2,700 people are now hospitalized in Louisiana with COVID, with roughly 90 percent of those being unvaccinated individuals. Cassidy says many hospitals just don’t have enough staff to handle this…
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